


Nothing heals quietly

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi gets expelled from his previous school after sending his classmate and teacher to the hospital, but is accepted into a new school just a few days later because of his uncle that just got back from France and is coincidentally good friends with the school's principal. Yet, there is one thing: he is accepted on the condition that he undergoes counselling sessions once a week in school. After meeting the counselor, Erwin Smith, Levi starts to realize that Erwin isn't like any other counselor—or person—he has ever met.</p><p>[This is the new and improved draft of 'Don't get precious'. Unlike the first draft, this will have changes in the plot, pace, dialogue, and so on, so forth. I'd love your feedback on this fic!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing heals quietly

_February 4th, Monday_

"Oi—somebody stop him! He's gonna kill him!"

His body is not his. His body parts—shoulders to the hands—grow brains inside of them, take control of his nerves, the bad blood, and muscles.

Levi hears his teacher behind him begging him to stop hitting the boy he currently has in his grasp, his left hand making a fist in that boy's oily, dirty brown hair, and his right repeatedly meeting with the bridge of that boy's nose and his left eye. Each collision is a nebula—the boy's face getting his cells torn and dispersed. The skin is oozing blood, the edges raised and in a pleading, whimpering voice, the boy raises his hands in defeat to beg for Levi to stop.

The boy's voice is a broken melody, coughing in-between each blow. Levi doesn't stop just because he begs for him to, so he continues, his feet pushing forward and his arms shoving the boy into desks and cupboards—the books and stationery falling out of the racks—and from hitting, he goes to strangling. The full length of his hand—the thumb and other four of his fingers—stretches fully, pressing his capitate bone into the hollow of the boy's throat and Adam's apple.

He feels a fire in his body—his hand forcing that same fire into the boy with a piercing awareness.

Levi observes what he's done as he angrily wipes the spit off his face with his free hand. He is sure that by now, some facial bone must have been fractured—bent, cracked like a wooden stick—and there in the very centre of the boy's face, there'd be a bruise that won't go for months. It's his fault for calling him a midget, but that isn't the thing that made him do this.

It's the spit. It's always the filth that gets to him—makes him lose control of his body because the anger rushes to his fists before his brain, and before he can start to care about getting expelled or suspended—though expelling him is more probable—he's already landing his fifth punch.

The boy is choking, makes a gagging sound, and as his throat arches, his heartbeat races.

"Please take your hand off him—he—he's going to die if you don't," a voice behind Levi mumbles. The teacher is afraid—in sweat and hands in front of him like a shield would appear to protect him—but still tries to intervene for the safety of the boy, and he walks forward cautiously like the while tiles of the floor contain a bomb in one of them. The teacher goes to grab for Levi's right arm with his fat hands and tries to pull him away from the boy, but he's no match for Levi.

He's a nuisance, that old bastard.

Levi decides to let go of the boy to elbow the teacher in his face just to teach him a lesson, but he didn't expect the teacher to lose his balance. The teacher stumbles backwards clumsily with flailing limbs until he hits the back of his head against the sharp edge of the desk and instantly loses consciousness. The blood pours slowly out of the wound. Trouble keeps piling up.

"Fuck!" Levi curses underneath his breath and gives the boy—now sprawled against the dusty corner of the classroom barely conscious—a final kick in the abdomen before he exits the classroom.

The other classmates can deal with the two unconscious people on the ground, anyway.

All of them are afraid of Levi now—even if some of them want to deny it—after they've seen what he can do and how powerless a person is, under his fist. Levi has no doubt he'll get expelled and have a bunch of letters addressed to his house—medical bills for that boy and teacher—that his mother needs to pay for.

As he walks out dragging his hand like a limp heaviness, the discipline master who has just gotten the news about the fight stops him. The man puts his hand fiercely and firmly on Levi's shoulder. "Just where do you think you're going after what you've done?" Levi turns around and meets his eyes lazily. The sight of the discipline master doesn't scare him like it does other students. The angry man speaks again in a low voice, "You," he warns threateningly, "come with me to my office right this instant."

Levi rolls his eyes as the discipline master pulls him by the wrist and takes him to his office. A few seconds later, Levi shakes his grip off and follows unwillingly, hating the sensation of anyone's skin on his skin; the mental reminder of probably four showers etched on the back of his head.  _Fuck off, you useless geezer_ , he mutters silently, but the discipline master didn't quite catch that.

He breathes heavily to calm down for his own sake, so he wouldn't hit the discipline master as well and have more medical bills to pay for.

 

-

 

Levi is a few more minutes from his house.

The discipline master, after getting him to fill up a form regarding the reason for the fight, takes him to the principal's office where some of the discipline committee are already in. Discussion occurs like Levi isn't in the room, and he knows their intention is to expel him. They're just pretending for the sake, to not seem heartless, so that he won't go around telling people or his mother that they expelled him in a few seconds flat.

This will be the last time he's going to be walking these school floors, and he's glad he won't see these bastards' faces any longer.

Fitting the key into the lock, the slightly-rusted brown front door opens with a loud shriek, and the first thing he sees is his mother's face—wrenched, her nasogenian folds denting inwards further more as her eyebrows fuse together to match her eyes. She's glaring at Levi like she wants to kill him right there and then at the doorsteps of the house.

Levi prepares himself for a scolding.

His mother, Eva, starts with an empty-voiced opening of mouth, then she glances down at her tightly-clenched fist and back at Levi. Her fist trembles at her strength. "Why did you go and get yourself expelled!? Don't you have anything better to do than getting into fights, you—fuck! You no-good troublesome shit, you piece of fuck-up! Now I have to pay for the medical fees, too. Are you happy now?  _Are you happy now!?_ " She breaks into a sniff. Her lips fix together like liquids blending, then she adds on, "I work to provide for us at some stupid run-down grocery store for a boss that won't stop touching my ass when he walks by! I endure—I endure, and why do you think I have to do this?"

"It's because you chased your father away. Good for nothing drunkard that he is, at least he works and gives us money. But you—you only use up all my money to buy all that shampoo, body wash and cleaning products! And have you seen the water bill? If you love showering so much, you might as well just jump into the ocean and never come back!"

Levi meets her shaking eyes indifferently. "Are you done?"

"No!" Eva screams at him in a high-pitched tone. Her voice echoes throughout the whole house and escapes into the neighborhoods. Walking closer to Levi, she stomps her bare feet at the floor and repeats, "No, I'm not done!"

"Well," he tells her passively, "I think I am."

This has happened too many times before, and he doesn't blame her for being angry because she has good reason to be.

If he were her, he'd be angry at himself, too. Anger, this anger—it's a different anger from what he felt; this one is more of a sorrier kind, one that is gentle and steals silently. Levi doesn't hate her, doesn't think she's wrong, doesn't blame. Everything she says is right, but that doesn't change a thing. He thinks the first place he goes to after getting expelled shouldn't be his house if he's going to want to walk away.

The thing is—he knows most mothers want the best for their children, but he can't be that ideal son. It makes him sick to the bone because he can't be a good person to her, for her, or because of her. She tried to raise him right, but he grew up wrong. He can't change the ways that he is, the ways that his father's fists changed him—no, no, he can't.

The sorry he says is wordless.

His words fuel her disappointment as she raises her hand a distance away from Levi's face. "Is it my fault?" she speaks wearily. _Did I raise you wrongly? Was it your father? Or is it you? Is it this house? What is it?_  She's sobbing, twisted, and maybe she still loves this son of hers in a way she doesn't think she can. She wants to be a good mother but still she finds herself stopped by this situation and this house.

Levi's eyes widen a little, but he isn't surprised. "No, it isn't," he blinks smoothly as he tells her, "it never really has been."

Eva doesn't know if hearing those words make her feel less guilty for what she's about to do. There is a lot of thought given into the movement of her awaiting hand, but in the end, she still brings it down and slaps him hard across his face with her palm. She doesn't like to do this—to hurt her own son because he hurt another person—but if she doesn't, if she doesn't do this, she'll feel it's her fault he turned out like this.

Levi's cheek turns pink, then red, his face still in the direction of the slap.

His eyes fall softly on her face, and lower than a whisper, he asks, "Did that make you feel better?"

Eva ignores him, feels the sting of the slap on her palm just as much as it is on his cheek, and goes back to her room with her hand on her damp face. There is a few seconds where she wants to say something to him, like she didn't mean to do that, but she did, not without a reason. Or maybe she wants to explain that it's for his own good. But for eighteen years, he already knows what his own good is. He only ever takes the bad.

There is no way she feels better slapping her son, and Levi only asks her that because it's the only thing he can give her right now. _Good child, filial son, you do me proud_ —these are words he'll never hear from her, not even from the her inside his dreams. He sighs in the knowing, of causing someone pain unintentionally but still can't put an end to it.

Aftermath drowns him in a flood he can't escape. Levi puts his fingers on the warm area of his face and traces it down with a lingering sensation, ignited words throwing themselves against the wall of his guts even though it's over.

 _There is something you want,_  he thinks to himself of words to say,  _that I can't give._

-

 

"I don't—I'm not going to beg another school to accept you," she tells him silently over the dining table as they eat, her spoon pausing midway held by her pale fingers. All anger from his afternoon is gone from her voice, but disappointment remains like debris over a ruined site. That's the end of his schooling days, Levi guesses, as he nods understandingly at her words.

"That's fine," he hears himself say. "I'll go and find a job."

Later, he spends two hours in the bathtub writing into the water of why things went wrong.

It all comes down to one word. He pulls the water apart with his index finger and it leaves a mark that goes away quickly—so he writes _anger_  in big words and it erases itself every single time, and he wonders, he thinks; loudly inside his mind why the water is able to get rid of impurities, and why he can't.

Shifting his body slightly, he wraps his hand into a fist and lowers it into the water—half in the air, half submerged—then he lets it go down slowly, like learning to be gentle, and sinks it down to the base. Once he's there, he unfolds it patiently. First to unwrap is his thumb, his index, the pinky, the middle and soon after, the index.

The circumference of his hand lays itself unmoving beside the drain. This way he'll keep it still, this way he'll keep the blood away from his fists.

One day he'll be able to take back the anger that shouldn't be led out. One day he will build a cage not to trap himself in, but to keep out the parts of himself that no one will bring themselves to love. If someone does love him, though, for everything—for that ocean in himself that'll never be rid of dirt and sharks—then yes. Yes, he'll take everything of that person and lock them in himself so he'll never be without them.

Exhaling a lengthy breath, he reaches for his cigarette packet just by the side of the tub.

 

-

 

In bed, he tosses.  _Undiagnosed insomnia,_ he says in his head. He counts the stars, the number of cracks in his ceiling—the straight and the zigzags—the ways his white walls don't match the darkened side of the corner very well, how the wires draw shadows that don't look like theirs, how it all builds a falseness within. He hasn't been sleeping well ever since he's a kid, ever since he learnt that his fists hurt more than a hammer.

The kid he played with when he was in a kindergarten comes to his mind. Her words come to his mind:  _You'll never stop hurting the ones around you._

* * *

_February 5th, Tuesday_

Levi hears the ringing at seven because he forgot to change the timing of his alarm clock. It's fine, he thinks, as he gets out of bed and straightens the bedspreads. He wouldn't be able to fall sleep today, anyway. He folds the blanket into a smaller piece, the same size as his pillow and puts it on top—or underneath, doesn't matter—then heads to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth. He gets it all done six minutes faster this time.

He picks a black-colored shirt to go with the dark-blue jeans he has in his closet and goes out after having breakfast.

Eva doesn't ask where he's going anymore, supposedly because she doesn't care what he does, or because she knows he'll get up to mischief again. Levi doesn't bother to go to lengths to prove her wrong because it's been years and she realized eventually he's not going to become a good person overnight. He runs a few fingers up his hair to neaten it, the edge of his other hand by the table like a hesitation.

"Bye, mom," he says as he leaves, eventually. It's a habit.

 

-

 

He tries finding a job, since there's no way he's able to get himself accepted into another school given his past history. In his entire high school life, he's already been expelled two times, so there's figuratively a sign that warn schools not to let him in written in big block letters on his forehead. The sun is shining into his eyes so much so that he can see lines—like static from television—all over his eyes. He feels blinded.

Levi tries to keep to the sheltered parts of the walkway.

"Hey," a man speaks from behind him, grabbing his shoulder in a friendly way; like he knows him. Levi's instincts is to slap that hand away and ask him what he wants, but he wills himself not to let that urge take over. He turns around calmly instead. The man's face instantly lights up when he sees him. "Levi! Boy am I glad to see you here. It's been way too long, and you still look the same. How have you been, boy?"

"Who the—"

"It's me, Dimitris! You know, your uncle? The one that bought you that strawberry cake for your fifth birthday? I remember you loved it," he points a finger at himself with a clumsy laughter amplified by the angle of his moustache. Dimitris has a bald head with still a few strands of hair by the sides, and he is just a few inches taller than the boy except for the fact that he's plump and looks like a funny little man in formal wear.

It takes Levi a few seconds to recall who this man is—he used to have a head full of hair, so it's difficult to immediately remember—and he knows for a thing that he must have hated that strawberry cake. Never in his life has he loved sweet things—those things make him want to throw his organs up on the dirty floor.

Irritated, he sighs mentally and asks, "Aren't you supposed to be in France?"

"Oh, you know how it is," Dimitris says, waving his hand around in a gesture. His accent is also quite different, presumably because of the time he spent in France. "Sometimes you find yourself missing your hometown all of a sudden, and all those nostalgic memories just go flying at you as if wanting you to go back. So here I am—home sweet home."

Levi doesn't know how it is to miss his hometown, but he just says, "Yeah, that's great."

"So what are you doing here all by yourself? Where's your mother?" he asks, looking around, then his eyes turn to his wristwatch. Dimitris squints a little to look at the time, then says, "Shouldn't you be in school right now? It's a school day, right? I mean, I haven't been here for a long time so I might be getting it mixed up."

"I got kicked out," Levi puts it bluntly.

Dimitris wears a shocked expression on his face, one of disbelief, his mouth agape. "What happened?"

He doesn't want to have to explain. "Long story."

"You poor boy," in sympathy, he gives him a pat on his shoulder, his lips pursed together like a sorry pout, although he doesn't know what happened.

Levi thinks that if he witnessed or heard of what happened that got him expelled, he wouldn't be giving him a pat on the shoulder like he's the victim or sufferer. He'll never tell him, though, because he wouldn't comprehend. People like Dimitris don't understand violence. They usually view it in black and white, if someone hits another person, the culprit is always at fault. Always. It never changes.

"Hold on," Dimitris' eyes widen immaculately, "I think I might be able to help you."

"Help me?" Levi asks, his voice laced with doubt. "You mean get me a job?"

"No, no," Dimitris corrects with a smile. "I can help get you into a new school. You're still in high school, right?"

Levi nods dimly, not putting much hopes into this.

"Then that's perfect. There's this school—Maria High School," he tells him. A finger on his chin. "It's near your house, I'm pretty sure. You haven't moved yet, right?" Levi shakes his head. "Then I think I can get you in there. I'm really good friends with the principal there. His name is Patrick. Patrick Simons. We graduated together and were best friends in university, so I'm sure he'll accept the nephew of the guy he's good friends with, right?" He laughs to himself.

Luckily for Levi, he hasn't been to that school yet. But still, he thinks if he goes there, the same thing will happen. He'll still get in fights, he'll still punch a teacher and get expelled again—so why repeat the same fate all over again? Levi shakes his head. "No," he tells him—and only because he's his uncle—in the nicest tone he can manage, "it's fine. You don't need to do that."

"I insist," Dimitris nods firmly, grabbing Levi's wrist. "Come on, off we go. I'll get you accepted even if it's last thing I do."

Levi gets dragged all the way to the said school, and he wonders to himself why people—particularly adults—like to pull on his wrist so much. Levi feels his skin cells escape and disperse from the area his uncle is touching. He wants to peel those layers off and burn them in a pot of fire.

After a while, he manages to shake his hand away from his grasp. He uses the bottom of his shirt to clean that area.

He doesn't remember vividly about this uncle he has—just that when he was young, Dimitris and his wife and kids had already moved to France because of his personal preferences. Levi remembers calling him a _shitty dumb fatass_  when he was little, and he sees that it hasn't changed now, either. It's good that he wants to help him get into a new school, but there's only a small chance that this will be the school he graduates from, and not get kicked out by.

The smell of rain blows itself against his nostrils.

 

-

 

They reach the school after walking for ten minutes since it's, like Dimitris said, close to his house.

The school is painted bright orange, a flag hanging in the fields facing the general office, and it's much better looking than the previous schools Levi has been in. Orange is a warm color. Emotions—like fruits—can most of the time be described with and as colors. For him, orange is a gentleness, but its neighbor—red—is the raw anger.

Two colors this close to each other can be different things altogether, which is the same as him and his uncle. Even though they're related, he is nothing like him. Levi wants nothing more than to just throw him off buildings and not just one time, but many times, repeatedly in the same pattern. He imagines it play out inside his head and thinks maybe this is why he'll never be able to manage his anger.

They enter the school, and as he goes up the staircase, he bumps into a blue-eyed blonde man way taller than he is. He turns back to look at him, and so did that man who looks like he's a teacher in the school. Levi thinks the man will say to him something like  _apologize if you've bumped into someone_ , or _where's your respect_ , but neither of those comes out of the man's mouth.

Instead, the man just smiles at him close-eyed.

Levi doesn't return the gesture at the suddenness of this. He continues walking up the staircase, but the second he reaches the intermediate landing, he places his hand on the handrail and quickly looks down at the ground level and watches him.

The man moves like a melody, his every movement a tune. There is something about that man that calms the constant and residing anger in him, and at the same time, sets it on fire—burns everything down. His other hand is on his lips now, thinking—pondering, that if he gets accepted here, he may be able to see him again, him with the blue eyes containing one entire ocean.

There's a spark in his veins that tells him  _yes._

"What's wrong? Someone you know?" his uncle asks him from the top.

"No," Levi tells him, but it feels like a monologue, "it's probably nothing."

 

-

 

"—oh, he's a good student! He's my nephew, and since when has anyone related to me been bad, huh? He's just a little rough, that's all. I'm sure he won't be all violent and brutal on your students, right?" Dimitris jokes, and Patrick—the principal—laughs with him, the two men in their own world, chatting like the room is soundproof and there's no one outside.

"Right," Patrick calms from the laughter. His hair is shaped like a U on his head, and he has this habit of touching his cupid's bow with the side of his middle phalanx when he pauses. It acts somewhat as a confidence booster. "In all seriousness though, Dimitris, if I have to accept him, I'll have to be a hundred percent sure that he doesn't attack my students if he's angered." He then rests his chin on his fingers, his elbows supported by the table. "So," Patrick says in finality, "I have a condition."

Dimitris agrees, listening carefully. "What is it?"

"I need him to go for counselling in the school," he says in a low authority-like tone. "At least once a week. And until he shows that he is in better control of his temper, he'll have to regularly attend each counselling session or I'll have no choice, I regret, but to expel him."

"Of course," Dimitris instantly comments. "He's perfectly fine with going for counselling." He then turns to look at Levi who's seated beside him with his hands—more like fists, now—on his thighs. "Right, Levi? You'll go, right?"

Levi gives a tired nod.

"See? What did I say, my friend?" he tells Patrick, patting Levi on the back a few times as he laughs outwardly and louder with each passing second. He gets himself an immediate glare from the boy when he doesn't stop patting him. Dimitris then takes his hand off of him after the wordless warning, and instead asks, "So when can he start school?"

Patrick thinks about it, then he turns to Levi. "Tomorrow, if that's all right with you?"

"Yeah," Levi says. It's probably the first time he's spoken inside this room. "That's all right."

 

-

 

Patrick then asks for his information—contact, background, close to almost everything—and report cards from his previous schools.

The textbooks syllables are the same, so he won't need to buy new textbooks for the year—which is a good thing, because not needing to buy new textbooks would mean he's saving the little money him and his mother still have. Patrick tells him about the rules of the school, the morals, what they aim to achieve, and a lot more of other details that goes right out of his ears. The class he's assigned to match the subjects he originally took, so there's not much changes except for a new school and a new environment.

Patrick hands Dimitris a paper that shows where different facilities and rooms are—and he does repeats to him a few times which room on the second floor the counselling room is—and after a few more minutes of talking between the men, it all finally comes to an end. Levi finds himself breathing fresh air again.

 

-

 

"You called for me?"

Patrick nods, then gestures towards the chair across him, "Have a seat."

"Right, Erwin," Patrick says after a long while of consideration, "my good friend who has just came back from overseas asked me to accept his nephew into the school, and I couldn't possibly reject him considering the long time we've known each other for. But that nephew of his has some... anger problems, as he would put it—and I was hoping you could try to reform him, seeing as you're the school counselor."

"One of them," Erwin corrects politely.

"Yes, of course," Patrick answers with a slight chuckle, "but Jessica is also teaching the seniors and it's a crucial time for them." Patrick flips through his thin stack of documents he has on his desk to the right pages then passes Erwin the papers. "Here's some information about him; I don't know if they'd be of any help," he rests his hand on his mouth, "you can treat this as a project. Make him your project for the month."

 _People are not projects_ , Erwin wants to say, but he keeps his mouth shut.

If this were a jungle, he'd be a lion and the principal would be a fire-breathing dragon, so getting into an argument about why he should treat problem students with a better attitude would be futile, and not to mention, stupid of him. He maintains a smile throughout just so he wouldn't seem disrespectful. It's edging towards pretense.

"What do you mean?" he asks further.

"Well," Patrick says, "he's starting school tomorrow, and he is going to go to you for counselling sessions once every week. Should he skip these sessions, you are to report to me immediately, and I'll take the matter into my own hands."

"And by taking matters into your own hands, you mean—"

"Expelling him."

 _Oh_ , Erwin thinks. It's the most probable decision for a principal like him to make. If it wasn't for the good friend part, Patrick would never have accepted a student with so much problems because it'd tarnish the school's reputation and not to mention, even bring harm to his own students. Erwin doesn't like the way he thinks—like how reputation is the most important thing one can have—but he can't comment on that.

He's been working here for years and he knows for a thing the principal isn't a great man and neither is he a good wonders why he's still trying to keep his job here. There's no doubt he could change schools to counsel for—a change of environment—but this school is just a five minute drive from his house, which is more convenient than going to the supermarket.

Exhaling inwardly, Erwin hasn't properly looked at the file Patrick gave to him; just flipped it though without grasping. Getting to know someone isn't all words and figures printed in black and white. He has to get to know him personally, and since the principal has handed this task to him, he'll do his best.

"Is there anything else I should know?" he asks Patrick.

Patrick looks deep in thought for a moment, a  _hmm_  dragging on as his fingers are on his chin. It's unprofessional, but it's not like anyone of high-ranking here act in a professional way. "That boy doesn't seem to talk much, so you might have a hard time trying to get him to open up to you."

"I'll manage," Erwin comments, smiling.  _It's none of your business, anyway. You can't wait to turn him into someone else's problem._

"Then that's all. You're free to go."

Erwin gives a quick bow then exits the room with the file in his hands, and as he walks out of the office, he starts to look at the file—just for the boy's name. His finger gently traces along the short and long lines of ink and eventually reaches the word  _Levi._

There isn't a photograph to go along with it because of the short notice, but something about that name links and etches itself on that boy he saw this morning when he walked down the staircase. Erwin hasn't seen him roaming the school corridors before, and normally he wouldn't have looked back when someone bumps into him because of the normalcy of it; but the boy makes him want to take a second look.

It happens with certain people.

 

-

 

On the way back to his office at the second floor, Erwin sees the same boy sitting at one of the round tables outside the general office with a bored expression on his face that's resting on the palm of his hand. Erwin takes a moment to link the happenings inside his head: the principal's request, the visit in the morning, and the fact that he hasn't seen him around. That boy is probably who he's supposed to counsel.

This is a good time to get to know him as just a stranger rather than his counselor. Erwin wants to know how differently Levi will treat both.

He goes forward and asks with a smile, "Do you mind if I sit here?"

Levi turns to look at Erwin from the corner of his eyes, his expression changing from a passive one to one that is clear to Erwin that he's thinking of something; perhaps about the fact they bumped into each other just now. After a few more seconds, he just turns away and replies crudely in an indifferent voice, "Do whatever you want."

Erwin sits beside him on the right and rests both his arms on the table.

He observes Levi's body posture—the way he moved away from Erwin the moment he sat beside him, the way his left hand is balled into a fist on his thighs; the thumb and the ring finger stabbing nails into each other, the way his feet faces each other instead of outwardly, and the fact that his eyes wander without looking as if he doesn't want to be here. He seems to be waiting for someone—probably the uncle that Patrick has mentioned.

The boy then stops whatever he's doing and looks at Erwin, curious and pissed, "If you're going to stare, at least be less obvious about it."

"Why would I want to be?" Erwin asks.  _Conversation_ , he thinks, it's good that he talks. "There's nothing wrong with just looking at a new face, is there?" He breathes then notes his reaction, and decides to add, "Unless you're insecure about it?" _Are you insecure about yourself? Is there something you don't want others to see? Do you dislike yourself?_

"I'm not," Levi tells him. Insecurity is not what this is.

Erwin thinks that's the truth, so he asks, "Then what is it?" The boy looks puzzled at that, which makes him elaborate, "You look as though you need to protect yourself from everyone around you."

"What does it matter to you what I do?" Levi retorts; his eyes glaring fiercely into Erwin's. A burning fire.

From the way he's behaving, Erwin starts to think of it as someone taking an exacto knife and carving the words  _everyone wants you dead_  into the back of that boy's skull. Levi's first instincts when meeting someone is to get them to leave, it appears, and there's no doubt this is a defense mechanism, although it seems it isn't for himself. It isn't to protect himself for people, but more of the opposite.

He wonders what happened to him to make him this way. People are never a certain way without a reason—there always is one, no matter how small or how much of a factor they've forgotten it was.

Erwin thinks that getting an answer from Levi today is improbable, so he changes the topic. Part of him wants to know if he'll lie. "Are you waiting for somebody?"

"My uncle," Levi tells him. It comes out like poison on his tongue. "He's in the cafeteria chatting with some of the teachers here. Says he knows most of them and has wanted to drop by and say hi for some time now. That fucker probably drinks piss for tea."

"Why aren't you with him?"

Levi rolls his eyes. "Why aren't you minding your own business?"

 _Oops._ He can't ask two continuous questions without getting a heated response like that. Perhaps the boy doesn't like being asked questions, but Erwin wouldn't be able to do his job if he doesn't ask any questions pertaining to his life, or even just small matters like how his day was, or if he's slept well—those kind of things that people wouldn't feel offended by when asked.

When Erwin wants to say something in return, a man comes from behind and says loudly, "Sorry for making you wait, Levi. Was I long?"

Erwin turns his head to see a man in his forties or fifties walking towards Levi.

He's definitely his uncle, no matter how they don't resemble each other at all. The almost-bald man wipes the sweat of his neck and forehead with his fingers, then smears it on the front of his shirt—putting the same fingers into his mouth after he does that. Well, Erwin concludes, if he were Levi, he'd probably want to wait outside the general office and watch the cars instead.

Levi gets up from the seat muttering something that sounds like  _whatever_  and follows him. As he walks away, though, he does look back at Erwin with softer eyes; his lips moving without a sound to mouth the words slowly, pausing with each word: _Does that answer your question?_

Erwin's eyes widen and he can't help but smile at this.

Minutes after Levi's gone, Erwin still finds himself sitting at the same table wondering about the sudden change of attitude in Levi, how he went from rude and offensive to a person who can look at him with eyes so soft he'd never think he was violent at all. There's so much about the boy he doesn't know about, and he wants to unravel the mystery, to know him; to understand.

He hides half his face with the palm of his hand as he breathes the thrill off his own skin.

 

-

 

Dimitris goes home with Levi and tells Eva about the new school, his life at France, and more details about things Levi doesn't want to know as he slowly slips into his bedroom and locks the door. He doesn't ever open his window because of the dirt and insects that may fly in, so he looks up at the sky enveloped by the blurry plastic-like texture and slumps down on his small bed.

Levi's eyes travel to the bag on the ground.

His original intention of burning the books is taken away from him, it seems, and now he has to go for counseling like he's some sort of a problem child, a mental case or a freak. Gods, it's always the people who make him feel like an outcast, not himself. He likes himself, likes his anger sometimes, like his hair, likes—all, everything, anything; including his lies.

He hears laughter coming from below. It's not like he hates it when people are happy, but he doesn't feel involved. They're never talking to him, they're talking about him, for him, at him, but it's never to. Angrily, he reaches for his bag with forceful hands and throws it hard against the wall. He won't be able to sleep tonight without hearing that horrible out-of-tune laughter beside his ears—inside his head.

He won't be able to sleep on any nights, anyway.

 

* * *

_February 6th, Wednesday_

Levi is woken by a loud continuous knocking.

He manages to fall asleep at around 5:30 in the morning—the dim lights of the clock hands show—but sleep is short-lived as always. It's around 7 now. Just a few more minutes before he should be getting ready for school. It's his first day, and first days should only be once a year, but somehow he manages to get two first days this year. He hides his ears in the pillow as the knocking won't stop.

There's five more seconds of knocking and then after, it goes completely silent. Good, he thinks, but that thought is snatched away when he hears his mother scream loudly from downstairs, followed by the breaking of a glass object. Fuck, fuck, fuck—he curses as he jumps off his bed and runs down to see what's happened, his heart in his windpipe.

His feet slip off the stairs as quickly as possible, and when he's finally there, he's met with three hooligans.

Eva sits trembling with her back against the side of the wall; both her pale hands on her throat rubbing tenderly as if trying to ease a pain. Tears are in her eyes and on her cheeks. Anger boils and slams into Levi like a train at full speed—he grips his hands so hard he stabs his own fingernails into his palm, but he doesn't care about that anymore.

"Oh," the hooligan in the middle spoke with a smug expression, "look who finally decided to show his cunt face."

Another one adds on, "Sorry we decided to invite ourselves in, 'cos we thought after what you did to our bro, you wouldn't even have the guts to walk around the streets anymore." The guy smirks, then spits on the ground. "Poor scaredy-cat hiding in his room all day, eh?"

"Get out," Levi warns.

He is scared. Not of them, but of himself. He doesn't know what he's going to do to them, but if they're lucky, their faces might still be recognizable when their bodies reach the morgue in a bunch of bags. His blood is raging across his body like a fire across a huge field, and it runs—the sound of a fire burning—playing in loops now as he walks forward. It feels like each step is denting a hole in the tiles. His veins burn.

"Aw, what's wrong?" the hooligan teases playfully. "Feeling scared? About to piss yourself like the dog you are?" And the other two laugh hysterically at the question, one of them swinging the bat carelessly in his hands.

Levi maintains his composure but he's set to kill. He wants them dead, their mouths, ears, and nostrils—all openings—stuffed with piss and shit, wants them to be disfigured, dismembered, torn from limb to limb and hung up on a pole in their balcony; wants to use a long knife and stabs them from the mouth to see it come out of their ass, to slice their fingers off slowly with a penknife.

His heart thumps loudly at the possibilities of what he can do to them. "I'm going to give you three seconds to get out."

"If not what?" they ask arrogantly. The one with the bat says, "You gonna cry to momma? Oh look, she's already crying, so why don't you go and cry with her? She looks lonely on that cold floor, don'tcha think?"

"3."

They just laugh. "Who does this midget thinks he's trying to scare?"

"2."

The leader of the hooligans pushes a photo frame off the table.

"1."

"Oh, like you can even reach my fac—"

Levi bashes his skull into the wall, all his fingers making sure to crush the facial bones, and then he kicks him in the crotch a second later. Whether it's a mountain or a rat, height isn't a disadvantage as long as he can jump high and make full use of his body. When the guy is half his skull into the wall and unconscious, he moves on to the other two who are now having fear written on their faces.

The leader puts his hands in front of him, "Wait—"

It's not like he didn't give them a chance to go. He's not going to stop now.

One of them is trying to run out of the house, so Levi chases after him first and instantly gets in front of him, punching him straight in the nose. He hears an audible crack, and it satisfies the blood in him. The man is still conscious and begging in pain when Levi kicks him in the abdomen with full strength, intending to send him flying into the leader.

The two hooligans knock into each other, and Levi walks slowly and threateningly towards them and takes a knife from the dining table. They're sitting on the ground now, backing away until they reach a wall. Like cowards, they start to plead, to find a way out of this.

Levi's body hovers over them—the shadow he casts bigger than himself—and he takes their right hands, putting one on top of the other and stabs the knife through in one go. Both of them scream loudly—agonizingly, like a shout from hell itself—and one of them goes unconscious from it. The remaining one is the leader and he is whimpering, pleading mess in front of Levi.

"Please—my hand! It hurts—please, please, I'm begging you!"

He pushes the knife in deeper. His hand is gripping onto the knife, putting his strength into not letting it slip out or let the hooligan pull it out himself. He only wants to know something important. "Who was the one who strangled her?"

"Wha— what?"

"My mother," Levi says as his glare penetrates. "Who did that to her?"

"No—just get the knife out of my hand, please!"

"Tell me who did it and I'll pull it out, or we can spend the whole morning here sipping tea with that thing sticking out of your hand. It's your choice," Levi tells him passively. And perhaps he could pour scalding tea on that hooligan's hand, too, while he's at it. He throws a concerned glance at his mother who is still trembling in the corner, and his anger increases.

"It's... it's..." he mumbles, "I-I don't know! I just, it was an accident, and I—"

"So it's you?"

"I..."

Levi immediately pulls the knife out—receiving a loud yell from him—and places it below the hooligan's eye. He'll cut it out and shove it up his ass. The more he thinks of how they strangled her makes him want to go to extreme measures to punish them. Here, he feels powerful. With a knife in his hands, he holds this man's faith, but he's no God. If he's not God, then what is he? Is he—

"Devil—you're the devil! You're fucking crazy!" the hooligan cries in fear, the deepest level.

Something about that sentence makes Levi want to stab the knife through that man's skull. He holds the knife just inches away from his face and he's just about to impale him—send him to hell—when he hears a piercing shout from his mother. "Levi! Put that knife down, stop it! Please!"

Her voice cuts through the house; it's like she's dousing a big forest fire.

Levi is frozen by the realization, of the loss of control and how he always needs someone to stop him. If she didn't stop him, that weapon might be inside the hooligan's head right now.

After a while, she walks forward and gently removes the knife from his hands, and he lets her. In this situation, she's his anchor. In this silent moment of wordless actions, he doesn't know if what he felt was anger or just insanity. He doesn't know himself as well as he thought he did. 

The knife is placed far away from his reach and the hooligan takes this chance to grab his two friends and make a run for it, lest they find themselves in trouble again. Levi's breathing calm, and Eva looks at him in disappointment. Somehow he thinks it'd be better if it were fear, or anger, or some other emotions plastered on her face. Disappointment is one of the few things that makes him feel like a wet cloth hanging on an edge of a building.

It doesn't dry. 

"Your neck," he finds himself saying quietly, "does it hurt?"

Eva breaks into tears. A building crumples in front of him. A sea drinks itself dry. The last words sting of _why?_  Chains of it, all over the pages. He lost himself again—he always does. Rage takes him and gives him a fire for a body, a dagger for a hand and a stone for a heart. Levi stops feeling human when he sees his mother's face, and he wants to say  _I'm sorry_ , but he can't start to say it. Can't place it anywhere.

He's reminded of loss, of leaving, of his father's footsteps when he finally leaves them alone, and his mother's tears. The same tears.

"Just," Eva mutters through her vision clouded with liquid, "go."

Levi doesn't.

She shoves him in the chest with her outstretched hands. Her eyes are down on the floor, but she manages to tell him, "Take your bag. Take your bag and go to school. I can't—I can't even look at you for the day. I... please, Levi, just go to school. Go."

Hesitatingly, he steps back. It's like his mind knows what she wants him to do but his legs doesn't. He inhales and forces himself to go to his room and grab his bag, but his hands tremble with the adrenaline in him as he grips the handle. His breath is hot—he can feel it on top of his lips.           _I don't want to be this_ , he thinks loudly.  _But how do I? When can I? I want to feel whole and human again._

When he walks out, she isn't in the living room anymore.

 

-

 

He hears a bird sing on his way to school. It's an unfamiliar melody that pulverizes his skeleton.

 

-

 

"Will you look up at the clock there and tell me what time is it?"

"It's eight."

"Yes, it's eight! And what's wrong with eight!?" the man—operations manager or teacher, Levi doesn't know—standing in front of the office screams at him in anger, his bony hands on his hips. He has horrible breath and wears unframed glasses, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to Levi that he's scolding him for being late because he's been late far too many times in his previous schools. He doesn't answer him, so the man adds on, "Well, I'll tell you what's wrong with eight! You're forty minutes late!"

Nonchalantly, Levi gives a shrug and looks elsewhere.

"What kind of attitude is that? Just look at how untidy you are! And is that ketchup?"

Levi raises a brow at that question. "What?"

"Your hands," the man points at them. "It's ketchup, right?" Levi then realizes he's forgotten to wash the blood off when he dealt with those three hooligans, but if this man thinks it's ketchup, then he'll just go with that assumption. He nods once. The man flares up, his eyebrows joining, "What have you been doing, dipping your hands into a bucket of ketchup? Look, I don't care what sort of mischief you kids get into these days, but you have to be punctual for school!"

"Yeah, I will."

The man puffs a mouthful of air like he's given up. "Go and wash up before you head to class. If I catch you arriving late one more time, I'm going to have to phone your father and have a nice chat with him."

"Good luck doing that," Levi walks away.  _She has been phoning him for years and he hasn't picked up once. It's almost the same as trying to get a tombstone to talk._

"What did you just say to me?"

"I said good luck," he turns around halfway and repeats his sentence. Levi is in no mood for this. He shouldn't even have come here—if he skipped and went somewhere, no one would have noticed it. His hands feel drained and so did the rest of his body. Like someone took a vacuum and sucked him out of this earthy body he doesn't feel human in. Sarcasm finds its way to his head, making him say, "Or are you audibly impaired as well?"

Levi hurries up and heads towards the washroom before the man calls him back to lecture him for being rude.

 

-

 

If there is a need for comparison, the first floor toilet would be hell, and the second floor toilet would be somewhere close to Earth.

He doesn't find heaven. With his sleeves pushed to his elbows, he scrubs the dried blood off his wrists, back of his hand, underneath the nails and fingers. In-between, there's a lot more filth he can't see with naked eye but knows it's there. Water has a transparency—a flaw—that makes him look at his own hand instead of the base.

His body is inches away from the edge of the sink. He doesn't want to be touched. Levi's skin is red and raw from the way he scours a dirtiness that isn't there, but he keeps on doing it. A knife materializes inside of his head, followed by the blood, then both of that inside the water submerged and diluted. The silver of the knife fades elsewhere. It is still red inside him.

There's the sound of a person walking towards him—careful footsteps—but Levi doesn't turn to look.

A familiar voice starts to ask, "Is that blood I'm seeing?"

 _Where?_  He's cleaned everything off. Levi knows he has heard that voice recently, so he tilts his head up and glances at the man standing beside him. It's him; the same man that talked to him when he waited outside the office yesterday. The man doesn't look even in the least surprised, just a rather passive concern and curiosity.

When Levi doesn't say anything, the man adds on, "On the side of your neck," and his hands move to point, to show him, "here."

The man's hands are inches away from his skin—and he can feel them pressing onto the air around—pressing them into his neck before he's even there. Hastily, Levi tells him in a tone that is neither nice nor rude, "Don't touch me."

Immediately, the man withdraws his hand and puts them beside his own body, not even stepping closer. Levi turns to the mirror and looks at his neck, putting his damp palm on the area that is stained with the same blood. He turns the tap on again and rinses it off, but when it doesn't go off as quickly as he wants to, he uses his nails to scratch them off instead.

"Don't do that. You'll scrape yourself," the man tells him, making it sound like an order, but still he stands at the same spot because of what Levi said to him.

Levi does stop, his fingers resting on himself, but it isn't because this man asked him to. He's just this close from pushing him out of the toilet and telling him to _fuck off_ , and he doesn't care that he might be a teacher or some high ranking staff here. There's a rage that flows to his eyes—he can feel himself glaring into the man like he wants him to die on the spot.

But he remembers what he's done today and he remembers control. Levi doesn't want to lose it twice in a day, so he calms himself.

"Why are you here?" he asks the man as he continues washing, this time gentler.

Levi knows this man isn't here for anything else like piss or wash his hands from the moment he asked about the blood on his neck. No one would notice it if they weren't specifically looking at him or all around his body. He isn't a ground with treasure buried underneath. Levi wipes the water off his neck with the tissue he pulls out from the box by the wall.

When he does that, it starts to hurt and glancing at the tissue, he sees fresh blood. He doesn't remember getting a wound in that place, but it must have reopened when he scratched it just then. Levi gives his neck a few more pats before he throws the tissue paper away, hoping it won't bleed too much after he leaves it alone.

"I'm actually looking for somebody," the man tells him, smiling. He doesn't seem to notice the wound, and Levi is glad for that.

"In a place where people shit and piss?"

"I was taking my chances."

"Right, whatever," Levi says. There's a confidence in the man that makes him feel small, for some reason, but it's not a bad smallness—not one that shrinks and weakens him. It's one that contains him. He's right about him from that time he saw him walk down the stairs. Levi doesn't know anyone in this school but he decides to ask, "So have you found him yet?"

The man's blue eyes shine on him. "I think I just did."

Levi eyes him; puzzled.

"I haven't introduced myself, have I?" the man chuckles a little, then says, "I'm Erwin. I think the principal has already told you that you're supposed to attend counselling sessions once a week." When he's done saying that, Levi rolls his eyes in realization and frustration, and walks pass him. Erwin stops him—stands in front of him to block his way, without touching him—and explains himself. "Look, I'm not here to force you to go counselling right now. It's not like that at all."

"Then what are you doing now?" Levi asks—more like yells at him.

Erwin fixes his gaze on Levi's, tries to gain eye contact. "Trying to get to know you."

"That's fucking easy," Levi says, "because I'm like an open book. All I ever do is get into fights, punch people for the hell of it when I'm pissed, and I'm like—this core, this accumulation of all the bad things. I'm made of anger. It's what's keeping me whole. So there. Are you done trying to get to know me or do you need a demonstration?"

His fists are gripped in a way that tells Erwin he's ready to punch him if needed.

"Is that how you see yourself? Just one big sack of anger?" _And possibly mistrust?_

Levi's eyes don't avert. Usually when people lie, their eyes will wander elsewhere, but he doesn't. The air stings the injury in his neck, and it's a hollow hurt. "What does it matter to you?"

"I'm your counselor," Erwin says innocuously. It's not the ' _I'm your father so you'll have to obey me_ ' kind of tone. On its own, it's a statement that sounds something like  _I'm your friend._  It's always the simple reasons that work best. If he tells Levi that it's because he cares for him, he'd take it as a lie—a pacifying and patronizing lie—even if he does, somewhat in his heart, cares for him in a different way from other students he's counseled.

He doesn't tell Levi that because right now, only the most basic things will work. We build buildings from foundations, not from the third floor. There is a change in the way Levi breathes—he's calming down, Erwin knows, from the way his body relaxes. But he keeps his fists clenched.

"You said this wasn't counselling."

"It isn't."

Levi exhales deeply and pauses. There is something missing. When he first asked why he was here, Erwin said he was looking for someone—which turned out to be him—but there's no reason for him to begin to look for Levi at this hour. All the students were in classrooms, so if he wanted to find him for something, he would have gone to his class first.

"Why are you really here, Erwin?"

The man smiles. _This boy is clever,_  he thinks. _He catches on quick._  "The operations manager who caught you coming late for school checked the first floor toilet and your class, but you weren't there, so he assumed you climbed over the wire fencing and played truant. He came to my office a while ago because he still couldn't find you." It just didn't occur to that man—the operations manager—to look for Levi in the second floor toilet, mainly because of laziness.

"They sent you to find me?" Levi asks, still a little doubtful but he believes most parts of it.

"Well, you are my responsibility."

Levi gives a slight nod at that, acknowledging, but he rethinks what Erwin said earlier and then asks, "If they thought I climbed the fencing, why didn't you look outside?"

"I had a hunch you were still in the school," Erwin tells him. In truth, it's more than that.

His job requires him to observe human behavior, to understand them. When Levi waited for his uncle instead of going back by himself, he knew this boy wouldn't play truant just because he got pissed or upset. He isn't a coward who runs away when things don't go his way. He stays however unhappily because he built his mind to go and not to leave unless he's pushed away or pulled. Although this is the second time he's talked to him, he is starting to understand Levi.

Erwin's eyes fall on Levi's hands.  _Just how long has he been washing them?_

"All right," Levi says. He can feel the blood from the wound slowly collecting together and traveling down his neck in one slow movement. "So now you've found me, good for you. You can go back to whatever shit work you were doing."

He quickly walks past Erwin, his mind thinking of band-aids and dry blood. When he's a few steps away from the door, he is grabbed roughly—the strength probably unintentional—by the wrist. The moment he feels Erwin's hand on his skin, he jerks himself away. It surprises Erwin because he's forgotten about Levi not wanting to be touched, and also because he didn't know he'd have such a reaction.

Erwin's eyes are on his neck.

_Shit._

"Did you not want me to see that?"

Levi feels guilty for a crime he hasn't committed, for something he's done which isn't right or wrong. His breathing collapses back onto his lungs. It's not the looking that bothers him. He doesn't mind if Erwin looks at all his wounds or scars, or if any other person does, but it's because people ask questions.  _How did you get it? Who did that to you? Did you do that to yourself? Did you get into a fight?_

He shakes his head ever so slightly but he doesn't know what for. Levi walks off without looking at Erwin a second time, his pace hurried and wanting to get away.

"Levi!" Erwin shouts out immediately, and it makes the boy stop for a little while, which he takes as his chance to add on: "I'm not going to ask you any questions about it, and I don't know what other counselors you've seen, but I'm not them. I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to. You just need to tell me—I won't disrespect that."

The floor in front of Levi has lines drawn like constellations—white and scraped—and he follows them with his eyes. He takes a moment to register into his head what Erwin is saying and it takes even more time to understand that he isn't lying. He's been to two other counselors in his high school life, and both of them have never said that.

He remembers one of them saying to him: _You're a problem child. If not, you wouldn't be sitting in front of me right now. And I've got a life outside of this school, so stop wasting my time and spill out your problems._

Levi never went to her for counseling after that.

After the fifth exhale, he turns back to look at Erwin. He'll give him a chance because he's earned it, and Levi has gripped his own hands too tightly—he does need to let go. That relief when he lets go is an explosion someone needs to contain, or he'll still fall into the sea because the ground doesn't want him.  _Is Erwin a boat? A lifebuoy? A savior?_

He thinks  _neither._  He thinks Erwin is just himself.

Levi meets Erwin's eyes properly—not with rage or avoidance. Openness is the word.

"The damn thing won't stop bleeding," he quietly tells Erwin. "Help me with it."


End file.
